Iraq's Trajectory a Year After Elections

Analysts Muhammad Al-Waeli, Ali Al-Mawlawi and Hamzeh Hadad discuss the latest political developments in Iraq including this week's violence between rival parties that led to tens of deaths in the heart of Baghdad. 

Analysts Muhammad Al-Waeli, Ali Al-Mawlawi and Hamzeh Hadad discuss the latest political developments in Iraq including the Sadrist withdrawal from parliament and the struggle over political and religious leadership. 

The makers of Iraqi Voices mark six months since the 2021 Iraqi election with a discussion about the key developments and milestones including the political impasse, Supreme Court rulings and more. 

Ten months on from last October’s elections, Iraq still does not have a new government and faces a deepening political crisis. To understand the current situation's perils and what may be next for the future of the country, we are joined by Farhad Alaaldin, chairman of the Iraq A ... Show More

On Monday August 29th, Iraq came closer to civil war than it has for year. The fears of many Iraqis that political tensions would spill out into violence were coming true. After 11 months of parliamentary elections, government formation is still help up by complete political grid ... Show More

This week on Babel, Jon speaks with Dr. Haider al-Abadi, an Iraqi politician who served as prime minister from 2014 to 2018, while the country was battling the Islamic State Group (ISG). They talk about his decision making as prime minister, the Iraqi government's response to the ... Show More

This week Jon is joined by Hassan Hassan, director of the program on non-state actors in geopolitics at the Center for Global Policy and the editor-in-chief of its new online journal, Newlines Magazine. Hassan talks to Jon about his late colleague, Hisham al-Hashimi, and the rese ... Show More

In a special episode of Babel to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, Jon sits down with two Iraqi guests to talk about the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion. Dr. Marsin Alshamary is a research fellow with the Middle East Initiative at Harvard's Belfer Cen ... Show More

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Dr. Haider al-Abadi joins the program to discuss the country’s fight against ISIS, Iraqi politics and the challenges of reform. Dr. al-Abadi has a new book out, entitled "Impossible Victory: How Iraq Defeated ISIS" (Biteback Publishing, April 2022). 

Over 13 years, the US spent at least $21.7 billion training and equipping the Iraqi army, police and counter-terror forces. Then, in the space of a few days in the summer of 2014. it all collapsed. As thousands of ISIS fighters poured over the border from Syria, as many as 90,000 ... Show More

Negar Mortazavi speaks to NPR radio about the six candidates cleared to run in Iran’s upcoming presidential election. The snap election comes less than a month after former President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash. The winner of the June 28 election will have to contend ... Show More

In 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest at America's occupation of Iraq.George W Bush had been giving a joint press conference in Baghdad with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki at the time. He was in his fi ... Show More

يدلي الناخبون الإيرانيون يوم 28 يونيو/حزيران بأصواتهم في الانتخابات الرئاسية المبكرة التي تشهدها البلاد بعد مقتل الرئيس الإيراني السابق إبراهيم رئيسي في حادث تحطم مروحية في مايو/ أيار الماضي. ويتوقع مراقبون أن تكون هذه الانتخابات صعبة إذ تأتي في ظل تحديات داخلية وإقليمية ودولية و ... Show More